


Swimming With the Sharks Until We Drown

by the_ghost_of_camp_nou



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, a bit angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:04:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5498000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ghost_of_camp_nou/pseuds/the_ghost_of_camp_nou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne Neville is many things.<br/>She is a defence attorney who never actually practiced law, the head and saviour of Warwick Inc., a huge fan of colour black and the heroine of a story in which nobody is willing to face reality, marriages are falling apart and maybe, eventually, things will be alright. Or not. Anne probably doesn't even want to know which would be worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Near or Far

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone,  
> This is my first fanfic about Anne and Richard and also the first I've ever written in English! Yeah, well, it's not my first language, so please be nice. :)  
> The title is from a song by Panic! At The Disco and I'd like to recommend you to listen to their album 'Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!' because I think it goes quite well with the story. :)

It was September 10.

Anne picked out a dress from her closet and tried very hard to remember the last time she had worn it. A family dinner, perhaps? Not likely, since her mother-in-law didn’t like her wearing black clothes. A charity event? Probably not, she preferred to look less snobbish at those. Or a meeting? No way, when surrounded by men, she always chose a pantsuit and a pair of heels so high people actually asked her how she hadn’t had acrophobia. Maybe a date night with her husband? Who was she kidding, that was out of question.

Had she ever worn this dress at all?

On the one hand, it was a terrible mistake on her part because the dress looked like everything she had ever wanted from a piece of black satin: it was sleeveless and knee-length with a fitted bodice. Anne felt so pretty in it she completely forgot that looking pretty had never been her intention. On the other hand, she couldn’t really blame herself for not noticing it in her closet. Everything in there was either black or navy blue so the dress probably just blended into the darkness.

She used to wear light blue and grey too but that was a long time ago. They made her eyes stand out and complimented her complexion. Unlike black, light blue and grey were not an absolute torture to exist in during summer. Anne also remembered wearing white, actually twice in her adult life. Well. It had turned out that white was not exactly her lucky colour.

Sitting down at her dressing table, she did her usual makeup: her hand almost automatically drew the lines of her cat eyes and applied dark red lipstick on her lips. She had learnt in her 26 years that perfect makeup meant success and success was everything. For Anne, it was also an excuse for her failure in other parts of her life.

She put on black gloves that reached her elbows and contemplated wearing pearls and then decided not to because she wasn’t Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s after all. In fact, she was nothing like Audrey Hepburn.

After a last glance in the mirror, Anne left her bedroom and checked if there was someone in the house and a sigh of relief escaped her when she realized that she was completely alone. It was way too early in the morning to act like the woman she had become in the past few years and she also felt like making pancakes for breakfast. Her mother always told her that it was the end of a marriage if the parties hadn’t eaten their meals together which actually made sense since Anne hadn’t felt like she had been in this marriage for years. Not like it really mattered; her mother was in Tokyo right now, being inspired by the city to create strange, unpractical and highly expensive clothes for Valentino, Givenchy or whoever she worked for momentarily. She would probably not come home for months which meant one less problem for Anne to handle.

Pancakes never failed her. While eating, she looked at her calendar for the day and noticed that she had a meeting at ten with George that made her want to drink a shot of whisky because, well, George wasn’t the person one would want to be business partners with. She tried to avoid meeting him most of the time and hadn’t seen him in quite a few months so she couldn’t really say no this time. They had to discuss the business strategies of Warwick Inc. which was something that George was good at: he had studied Economy and Business at Warwick University while Anne had studied Criminal Law at Oxford and now felt pretty useless with her degree. _But then again, who knew her father would pass away and she would become heir to the whole goddamn company along with Izzy?_

But she had become good at it. She probably inherited her father’s sense of business because things were going swimmingly and to her utter surprise, her employees seemed to like her. Her father had hated his inferiors and the feeling was mutual so that was what Anne expected when she took his place. On her first day, she had treated everyone with respect (due to the fact that she was completely terrified, mostly) and somehow she had become friends with the majority of the people who worked in the headquarters so now she always had a coffee on her table when she arrived at work. It was really nice, especially since the only thing that awaited her when she arrived at home was the feeling of emptiness.

Suddenly, her phone rang. She instantly knew she should have turned it off but it was too late now.

“Anne, dearest!” She heard the voice of her mother-in-law.

“Hello Cecily,” Anne answered.

“It’s so good to hear your voice, I haven’t heard from you in ages,” Cecily said. She was right, Anne hadn’t been present on the last two Grand Sunday Family Lunches and had probably missed a few family dinners too because of her trip abroad.

“Rome was splendid. I’m thinking about returning in spring,” She replied. She decided not to mention that she was also planning to buy a mansion in Tuscany.

“Oh, then take Richard with you! He looked so lonely while you were away,” Cecily remarked and Anne felt like she was stabbed in the stomach. No one had even mentioned her husband’s name in the past two weeks: she could peacefully ignore his entire existence and think about her mansion in Italy and it had been so wonderful that somebody had to ruin it.

“Sure, I bet he’ll love it,” Anne agreed. _Because it’s never going to happen_ , she added in her head. But today was not the day she would tell the truth to Cecily. Tomorrow wouldn’t be that day either.

“Perfect.” Anne could practically hear her mother-in-law smiling. “And how about a lunch today?”

“It would be nice but I’ve already promised Izzy to go and have a pasta together,” Anne answered. “Tomorrow, maybe?”

“Alright, dearest, I’ll call you!”

Anne had never understood why some women couldn’t stand their mother-in-laws. Cecily had been so friendly with her since the beginning and after five years they still went to the theatre together at least once a month. Of course, there was Elizabeth, the wife of Cecily’s oldest son. It never failed to make Anne smile how much the two women hated each other, but that was Elizabeth’s fault entirely: she shouldn’t have acted like a goddamn queen all the time. Or at all.

And that was the moment when Anne heard the garage door opening. She looked at her watch: it was quarter past it. _He was not meant to be here!_ She threw her plate into the sink and bolted upstairs into her bedroom and shut the door immediately. It was like a reflex, really.

Before the inevitable meeting with George, she was planning to go to a yoga class, but now that her husband was in the living room (most probably), she couldn’t go anywhere until he left for his bedroom. It would have been so great to practice yoga. It had always helped her clear her mind which would have been incredibly useful now. She was about to meet one of the most difficult men in England and the best thing she could do was to wait for her husband to finally go to his bedroom.

Anne was aware that as a strong and successful woman who had decided to buy a house for herself in Tuscany she shouldn’t have run away like a scared child but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t be strong and cold and hard all day, it was exhausting. And she had been doing it for far too long: sometimes she was afraid she would eventually become the woman she was pretending to be, other times she thought the sooner the better. This would end tragically anyways.

It was half past nine when she tiptoed down to the sitting room again. She quickly put on her a pair of jet black high heels and ran towards the garage where her black Audi was waiting for her. She almost smiled when she finally left the house.

Had she looked back, she would have seen a dark-haired man standing at the window of his bedroom, staring at the receding car with an expressionless face.

But Anne wasn’t the type of person who would look back, she was thinking about the question that a reporter asked her exactly a year ago. September 10. _Mrs. York, have you lost someone?_ She remembered looking the reporter dead in the eye and not saying a single word. Even back then, she had known what the man had been trying to ask, referring to her black clothes, but she still couldn’t answer after all this time. Her father, her beloved father died when she was 21 but that was years ago and nobody had passed away since.

Everything was supposed to be fine, yet nothing was and perhaps she had, in fact, been mourning constantly. She was still mourning the house that used to be full of life and love and was now empty and mourning the times when there had been genuine happiness behind her own smile.


	2. Keep It Secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the kudos and the comment! :)  
> Now, meet George and Izzy! :)

After arriving to the headquarters of Warwick Inc., Anne was greeted by Mr. Buckingham who informed her about all the meetings she would have to hold during the week. She had always found the man a little strange but didn’t say a word to anyone about it. Buckingham was her husband’s friend as far as she knew and she wanted to avoid any confrontation with him.

The usual coffee was waiting for her on her desk in her beautiful mug that had Van Gogh’s Starry Night painted on it.

But there was another mug next to hers. It was red and ambitious with a Ferrari logo. Anne didn’t like it at all, it reminded her very much of its owner who was currently occupying her seat behind her desk. In her office.

“Good morning, George,” She said coldly. Today, members of the York family didn’t know where they were supposed to be, it seemed.

Her brother-in-law looked up at her and smiled.

“You are very pretty today,” He observed and Anne didn’t know whether or not it meant that she didn’t look good on other days. “Have you heard the news?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“What news?” She had no idea what George was talking about and it made her feel worried. He seemed awfully confident for someone who had just been caught sitting on the chair of his boss. She _was_ his boss, after all.

“Richard hasn’t told you?” He quizzed with an alarmingly sweet grin on his face.

“Apparently, no.” Silence. Anne sighed. “This is the part where you share it with me.”

For moments, they simple stared at each other from the two opposite sides of her desk, her most precious piece of furniture that had been used by her beloved father. And she was standing on the wrong side. Suddenly, George stood up and pulled the chair out, indicating for Anne to sit there. _Finally_.

The sun was shining outside but she could almost feel her coffee going cold.

“I really don’t hate you, Anne,” George began. She blinked. _What the hell?_ But before she could express her concern about the man’s mental health, he continued. “But you make it so hard sometimes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’ve been working together for at least four years and we’re practically family, yet the only topic I’ve ever discussed with you is business. This isn’t normal,” He declared.

Anne gaped but couldn’t say a word which surprised her even more since she always had an answer for everything. She was a lawyer, the person who was expert at choosing the right words at any situations. This wasn’t how she had imagined this conversation.

“I couldn’t even say thank you for employing me at Warwick Inc. after my—” Oh, that little _fall out_ with Edward. Izzy was virtually begging her, so it wasn’t like she had a choice. She decided to graciously forget the fact that George had wanted the whole company for himself before she took it over. “You know. So thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome,” Anne replied in a cool tone. George rolled his eyes so hard that she thought they might fall out.

“This is what I’m talking about!” He exclaimed. “Shouldn’t we be friends or something? Do you even have friends? Or do you just shut everyone out like me?”

The silence that followed his words was suffocating.

She didn’t shut people out! She just selected her friends carefully. Very carefully. She had at least two people who knew about most of the important things that had happened to her. It didn’t really matter that these two people were Isabel and Cecily who were also her family. They could be her friends _and_ her family, right? She didn’t need outsiders anyways.

“I do have friends, George.” _Very witty, Anne!_ She slapped herself in the face mentally.

“Like who? My mother? And have you informed her about—” He stopped very suddenly.

Anne tried to look confused or even better, glaring expectantly at him, but she dreaded the end of that sentence more than she dreaded wearing pink in public. Fortunately, George decided not to ruin her life.

“I know about your secret, Anne,” He confessed.

_No._

Anne went white which probably made her look quite scary in that black dress. George shouldn’t have been aware of this. Never. Everything was going so well in her life right now, she couldn’t risk having her reputation ruined: the tabloids would simply tear her apart. She could almost see those horrific headlines about herself and the pictures… _No_. She had already decided that she would do anything in order to avoid that or die in the attempt.

“We need each other’s help right now, you know” George said. “I’m sure we can solve all of our problems together if you cooperate.”

Anne studied her brother-in-law. She used to hate him so much but the reasons had become blurred over the years. Was it because of his incident with Edward? Or that fight they had over Warwick Inc.? Because her husband never really trusted him? Perhaps all of these things had been factors in her feelings towards George, but right now none of them seemed relevant.

On the other hand, she suspected that he wasn’t doing this without ulterior motives. She also suspected that his whole lecture about their relationship was completely meaningless for him and that was a relief. She didn’t need friends, especially not friends like George who had this terrible tendency of only being decent to people until he needed them.

“What do you want?” Anne asked.

“How about a dinner? We could discuss this over a sushi tonight,” George offered.

“I hate sushi.” _And dinner with you sounds like a personal invitation to hell._

“Oh, I see,” He replied. He even had the nerve to smile at her. “Paella, then? I happen to know a nice little Spanish restaurant a few block away from your house.”

Every atom of her body protested against agreeing to this, but too much depended on it. She didn’t even want to know why George knew about any kind of restaurant in her area, he hadn’t visited for ages. Which was a brilliant thing. It should have stayed that way.

Yet sadly, it was George who won the staring contest.

“Fine.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” He said then stood up and, with a bow that Anne couldn’t quite place, he stormed out of her office.

She wanted to tell him that she had her own car, she had two of them, in fact, but he was already gone. She also wanted to tell him that he had left his annoyingly red and ambitious mug on her desk.

°°°

Lunches with Izzy were light-hearted events. Her sister told her about the news from her art gallery and the men she had recently met. Anne usually just listened and sometimes made funny comments at which Izzy rolled her eyes. She also wondered why her sister was still married to George and completely ignored the fact that her she could have asked herself a very similar question.

“How was Italy?” Izzy questioned.

“Very sunny. Rome was terribly crowded but Siena was love at first sight,” She replied. The memory of the medieval city was still vivid in her mind.

“Siena? Have you heard about the Palio? I have a friend who is a great fan of that,” Izzy remarked. _A friend._ That gave Anne an idea.

“Of course, I have. I’m actually planning to go next year,” She said. “Could you perhaps introduce me to this friend? It would be nice to have someone to show me how things go.”

“Sure,” Izzy smiled. “I’m organizing a little party at the gallery right now, it’s going to be on next Tuesday and Will told me he would come, so consider yourself invited.”

“Thank you. Dress code?”

Izzy laughed.

“You will come in a little black dress regardless of any dress code, Anne.”

Anne shrugged. “Why would I change something that works?”

“But you felt necessary to ask me if there was a dress code. Typical. Anyways, have you called mum lately?” Izzy asked.

It never ceased to amaze Anne how much her sister cared about their mother. After all those endless and completely pointless rows with her when they had been teenagers. But perhaps it was easier for her sister; unlike Anne, their mother had not talked Izzy into a marriage that had ended so tragically that Anne still had nightmares about it sometimes. _Poor Edward._

“No. She haven’t called me either so I guess she’s fine,” She answered.

“I’m thinking about visiting her, you know. After the party. I need to go and relax for a while.”

Isabel’s voice was dreamy. Anne couldn’t quite understand what was so tiring in managing one’s own art gallery, but didn’t want to argue. Living together with George York was an excuse for all kinds of strange actions, including the desire to leave the country.

On the other hand, Anne had a bad feeling about this. With Izzy out of town, she would have one less person to talk to and go out with, which meant that she would have to spend even more time at home. Perhaps her irritating brother-in-law was right after all: she really needed a few new friends.

Just to keep up appearances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear (erm, read) what you think. :)


End file.
